Every morning on my way to my car I pick up Doritos bags, tea bottles, and those little aluminum cigar bags. And plastic grocery bags. But I refuse t pickup tissues or napkins.
Anyways, the larger point is that obsessions about symbols, ulterior motives and miligning other people's character, to the point that an entire retreat is scuttled because of something that could be a random stupidity or a subtle insidious slur.
There are very real and serious issues that cannot be discussed when people resort to accusations of bigotry such whether or not economic policies reduce opportunities for job seekers or whether some social policies create a permanent underclass or if development projects disproportionately affect minority communities.
I am ignorant of fluid dynamics and multidimensional maths. Apparently I don't know a whole lot about the feeding habits of raccoons. And I really don't know much about how to trap a gorilla. But I do know a lot about the fluidity of symbols, how the shift, how they change with time, context, and accumulated use (Duchamp comes to mind), and how easily they are misinterpreted (like Hindu statuary) or deliberately misinterpreted (like Carrara marble representing "white privelege" or Bronze statues as "blackface"). All these hysterics, and that's exactly what they are, are predicated on the idea that symbols and symbolic acts, when they aren't even clearly symbolic, mean one thing and one thing only and that one interpretion must overrule all others to invalidate the political opinions of those with which they disagree.
Anyways, the larger point is that obsessions about symbols, ulterior motives and miligning other people's character, to the point that an entire retreat is scuttled because of something that could be a random stupidity or a subtle insidious slur.
There are very real and serious issues that cannot be discussed when people resort to accusations of bigotry such whether or not economic policies reduce opportunities for job seekers or whether some social policies create a permanent underclass or if development projects disproportionately affect minority communities.
I am ignorant of fluid dynamics and multidimensional maths. Apparently I don't know a whole lot about the feeding habits of raccoons. And I really don't know much about how to trap a gorilla. But I do know a lot about the fluidity of symbols, how the shift, how they change with time, context, and accumulated use (Duchamp comes to mind), and how easily they are misinterpreted (like Hindu statuary) or deliberately misinterpreted (like Carrara marble representing "white privelege" or Bronze statues as "blackface"). All these hysterics, and that's exactly what they are, are predicated on the idea that symbols and symbolic acts, when they aren't even clearly symbolic, mean one thing and one thing only and that one interpretion must overrule all others to invalidate the political opinions of those with which they disagree.
<insert profound quote here>
